Can research into the field of serious games, the rehabilitation of youth addicts
and a fascination for smell be combined? Susana Cámara Leret brought these
­ingredients together in Kindred Spirits, an extraordinary research in which smell
and speculative design create a new service for rehabilitation clinic Mistral (part
of the larger care organisation, Brijder).
At the start of her Research Associateship (a design research position at Design
Academy Eindhoven), Cámara Leret was introduced to CRISP’s G-Motiv project.
As one of the research projects of the Creative Industry Scientific Programme
(CRISP, a national research programme that focuses on the development of
­Product Service Systems), G-motiv focuses on applying game-elements as an
­approach to behavioural change. The research team consists of PhD researchers
of Delft University of Technology, researchers of Design Academy Eindhoven and
specialists from three serious game companies and two health clinics.
With a strong belief that design can construct new meanings Cámara Leret aims
to design prototypes that bring new perspectives to the present, by exploring the
future. She interviewed the youth addicts (aged 15-25) from the rehabilitation
clinic, Mistral, in The Hague. In this clinic it is common practice to ask patients to
share personal stories in order to provide the carers and psychologists with more
insight into personal histories that may relate to current addictive b
­ ehaviours.
Cámara Leret, who had previously researched smell, knew that smell is d
­ irectly
linked to the part of the brain that processes memories and emotions, and speculated that sensory tools based on smell could make expressing and sharing
these memories and emotions easier. With the help of International Flavours and
­Fragrances (IFF) she conducted smell sessions with the patients, through which
she explored their perception of the facility, as well as personal memories and
life stories. These s­essions showed that smell motivates patients to share their
personal stories indeed. As Berend Hofman, psychologist working at Mistral and
advocate for the project, puts it in the interview on page 25 “smelling makes you
want to talk”.

5

The realisation that smells help to share stories led to the design of the Smell-­
Memory­­Kit: The Molecules that Matter, which has since been implemented at the
clinic for the intake process. In addition to that, Cámara Leret developed the
Kindred Spirits series. This series consists of two fictional creatures that prompt
new relationships between the patients, staff and their surroundings. Both the
Smell-Memory Kit and the Kindred Spirits series are a design research response to the
patients’ perception of the clinic and each other. For example, one of these Kindred
Spirits hides in dark spaces and is extremely sensitive to sound; the other is very
sensitive to stress molecules. These fictional, designed ‘types’ could be a ­mirror
for patient’s feelings, but they could also help build confidence with ­patients in
their treatment and rehabilitation.
The design outcomes are not only of use for the rehabilitation clinic, but are
also important results for the entire G-motiv research project since it offers another perspective towards behavioural change. Some of the research tools were
introduced at Design Academy Eindhoven, where a four-week educational programme was held around the design research on smell (see page 55). Anab Jain
was involved to explore a speculative design approach (see page 37). Furthermore,
Cámara Leret presented her research at the international conferences What Design
Can Do (2013) and Nordes (2013).
We hope you enjoy reading this publication, which gives an overview of the
­research entitled Kindred Spirits, and the insights of various stakeholders as well as
its methodologies.

6

Connective Tissue
Introduction
Susana CĂĄmara Leret

Kindred Spirits is a design fictions research project which stages playful interactions in the rehabilitation clinic, Mistral, in The Hague. Its goal is to explore the
behaviour of addiction patients and envision alternate possibilities for current
systems and services within the clinic. The work was developed within the multidisciplinary context of the G-Motiv project, under the Creative Industry Scientific
Programme (CRISP). Two lines of investigation were explored throughout the
duration of the project: an on-going sensory and contextual research centred on
the use of smell as a storytelling tool, leading to the design and implementation of
the Smell-Memory Kit: The Molecules that Matter; and, the co-creation of speculative
designs materialised in the Kindred Spirits series, to provoke critical discussions
pertaining to addiction therapy. Establishing a contextual relationship between
this immediate and speculative line facilitated not only designs for existing needs,
but also the creation of frames of reference for future possibilities in treatment
and therapy, by situating design fictions within everyday life.
Extending beyond the boundaries of pre-defined roles in research processes
allows designers to engage with the construction of new meanings and value for
people, such as Mistral patients, rather than focussing on problem-solving, which
is often still seen as a designerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s core skill. This interstitial position for designers[1] implies a freedom to explore within a given context, which in Kindred Spirits
Â­facilitated an exchange of information between the different project collaborators. The partnership with IFF was possible through the commitment of the small,
yet incredibly enthusiastic team of the Olfactive Design Studio, led by Bernardo
Fleming. Similarly, the work done at Mistral was enabled through the personal
time invested by clinic patients and clinicians. The dedication, proximity and
flexibility that characterised the work sessions resulted in a deeper understanding
of the needs and aims of the patients, clinicians and smell experts involved. These
exchanges and insights allowed an iterative design process, which helped the
proposals evolve and progress through each interaction, enriching the research.
When working with multidisciplinary teams, similar iterative processes allow a
more critical and holistic approach to designing services and systems.

7

The power of design to bring different people together often changes the nature of the initial research question. Scent as a research method opened up a
new research focus within the G-Motiv project: a novel communication tool
between patients and staff, which centres on memory and recalling emotions.
The ­collaboration with IFF was introduced to an educational context through
the Open ­Design Space (ODS), A Message for Oblivion, a four-week course held in
­February and March of 2013, at Design Academy Eindhoven. It focussed on the
development of future sensing probes. Students participated from various institutes, such as Design Academy Eindhoven, Tilburg University and Eindhoven
University of Technology. The exposure to olfactory technologies and the amorphousness of sensory experience was a challenge to participants’ educational
foundations, whilst introducing them to a different, more strategic role for design.
In May 2013, students, patients and perfumiers all came together at IFF’s laboratories to exchange results and ideas, inspiring one another to look beyond the
confines of their own professions and worlds. The students’ take on sensory experience presented promising future pathways for the scent industry. Similarly, the
world of scent control and its intricacies succeeded in engaging the imagination
of both patients and students. This experience provided the patients of Mistral a
chance to look at the world from a different position: a first-time encounter with
a world of possibilities, which allowed us as designers to engage with them in the
co-evolution of the project from a different angle.
The various narratives that informed Kindred Spirits are compiled within this publication, hopefully extending beyond a single, conventional category. The outcomes
present multiple tales relating to human behaviour, with no single answer or
solution regarding addiction therapy and treatment. Its essence instead resides
somewhere between each personal tale or reflection. These contributions should
be addressed as ‘connective tissue’ that supports an imaginative space, one which
is also found between a smell molecule and its associated recollection of place;
between the immediateness of gratification, and the shivery, uncanny explorations of the lesser known…

References
[1]

Cámara Leret, S., & Raijmakers, B. The In-Between: An Experimental Venture
into the Position of the Designer. in Nordic Design Research Conference,
(Copenhagen-Malmo, 2013).

8

Scientific
partners

Healthcare
providers

Addiction
patients

The In-between Position of the Designer

9

The Smell-Memory Kit:
The Molecules that Matter
is implemented in the
足patient intake process
of the Mistral clinic and
explores the links between
smell, memory and
emotions

10

The Molecules that Matter
Storytelling and the Smell-Memory Kit
Susana Cámara Leret

At rehabilitation clinic, Mistral, patients share their life stories as a form of
treatment. These recollections are frequently referred to as ‘health narratives’
since behavioural patterns often emerge that can aid or hinder recovery[1]. These
personal accounts are not always the easiest stories to share as, in the context of
addiction, they can be accompanied by strong emotions, frustrations and guilt.
Focussing on these personal stories provided an initial context to investigate
the kind of behaviours that could captivate collective visions for alternative
interactions and everyday routines, specific to Mistral. Smell is a speculative
tool for storytelling due to its associative power and abstract link to memory and
emotions. With the material support of the Olfactive Design Studio from International Flavours & Fragrances (IFF), we began to explore these smell recollections
and their associated stories.
In a series of smell sessions, we introduced different odour samples and asked
the patients to record their associations with each sniff. We soon realised that –
as Berend Hofman, one of Mistral’s psychologist’s expressed – “smelling makes
you want to talk”. The limited vocabulary we possess to talk about smells was not
hindering but instead motivated the patients’ curiosity to guess and describe
each sample’s origin and, more importantly, to share the personal stories and
anecdotes triggered by each smell. It was discovered that describing smells and
relating to them with personal stories eases sharing personal accounts with
others. This led to the design of the Smell-Memory Kit: The Molecules that Matter,
which would later be implemented during the intake conversations in the clinic.
Our olfactory system is intrinsically linked to the limbic system, the region of the
brain that operates memory and emotions. This is why when we smell something,
our emotional response precedes any understanding of the scent[3]. This associative power of smell allows us to powerfully and emotionally recall past experiences
when exposed to smells we have previously encountered. These smell recollections, known as the ‘Proustian Effect’*, are attached to fragments of our memory
but do not always consist of lucid accounts. Nevertheless, it is this fuzziness of our

11

The Kit is composed of eight naturally occuring molecules, enabling a series of smelling exercises guided by
a ­clinician, to prompt recollections of past experiences
and aid story sharing for more personalised treatment.

experience of smell paired with its limited vocabulary that turns it into an optimum tool for storytelling.
A smell is a chemical detection of molecules, light enough to evaporate and reach
our noses. Nature uses the same molecules in different ways and a small number
of molecules account for the vast majority of the smells in the world. Nevertheless,
a molecule of Rose Oxide smells like a rose because of the associations we have
­attributed to it[2]. Using this underlying structure from scents in nature, we created
the concept ‘smell-webs’. Within the Smell-Memory Kit, a molecule such as Methyl
Mercaptan, found in spoiled refrigerated chicken, marijuana or faeces, is linked
to the molecule Methyl Anthranilate, which is found in the smell of jasmine oil.
Extending this process, led to the selection of eight naturally interrelated molecules, namely: Terpinene, Beta Pinene, Methyl Mercaptan, Dimethyl Sulfide, Dimethyl
Trisulfide, Methyl Anthranilate, Geosmin and Vanillin.

12

During our visits in the clinic, we noticed that the intake conversation was ­referred
to as a stressful experience by the patients, and a majority associated the experience to feelings of anxiety and restlessness. Implementing the S
­ mell-Memory Kit in
this process helps new patients to Mistral to open up in a relaxed and welcoming
context. The Smell-Memory Kit and a series of smelling exercises facilitate the
encounter between a new patient, their ‘buddy’ (an existing patient) and the clinician. The patient and buddy smell each molecule. With their eyes closed they are
asked to smell and write down first impressions, feelings or memories triggered
by the smell. They smell again, and expand or tell more about their recollections
and experiences with each smell. In this manner, the exercises slowly lead to
an exchange of memories and personal stories. As there is no right or wrong
answer, it is simply the personal experience that matters; the process creates an
objective, sheltered context where both patients are encouraged to talk openly
about ­themselves.
As one patient explained**, the smells become “the object of the conversation” alleviating the pressure. The innate haziness of smell reveals not only specific moments
or anecdotes from their previous life experiences, but also a personal take on the
world, through which patients can contribute to their therapy’s official storyline.
* The trigger of memories by sensory stimuli has become known as the ‘Proustian effect’ or the

‘Proust phenomenon’, since Marcel Proust first wrote about his childhood memories flooding

back after dipping a madeleine in his tea in Remembrance of Things Past.

** This reflection came from a pilot test of the Smell-Memory Kit with a new patient to Mistral,

their buddy and a clinician, in June 2013. During the session, we also discussed the possibility

of extending the use of the Smell-Memory Kit to other instances throughout their therapy.

Both patient and buddy expressed positive emotions, claiming to know more about each other

Smell web used during the
intake conversation. Each
number matches a bottle
containing the corresponding
molecule, which is revealed by
the clinician after the ­personal
smell anecdotes are shared
between ­patient and buddy.

Dimethyl trisulfide

1
õ terpinene

Plastic
15

16

17

18

Smell as a therapy tool
Sissel Tolaas in conversation with Susana Cámara Leret

Sissel Tolaas explores the world through the nose / via smell. With a background
in mathematics, chemical science, linguistics, languages and visual art, her work
shifts boundaries, making systems of smells a basis for communication. I meet
with her to discuss the challenges and possibilities of smells in therapy, further
reflecting on the experiences of addiction patients at Mistral rehabilitation clinic.

The smell of potential
Sissel Tolaas

“The way I’ve been working with smell as a therapy tool is
really to tailor-make smells for each person, based on each
person’s history or the narratives I have at my disposal: it
depends on whom I’m working for and how their whole
overall situation is. I work on most cases with psychiatrists
or psychologists who have access to more ‘inside information’. From these narratives I then create ‘smellscapes’
or ‘smell individuals’. This is done carefully because you
can also cause the opposite reaction – the one linked
with the reason the addiction started in the first place. It’s
very tricky, because it can become emotional. It has to be
­approached very carefully with connoisseurs in the field.
Smell is a plain tool – like a gameboy – a tool to play with.
You can put some smells around a table and play around
with them, but when you go into therapy it’s a different
kind of field and you have to be very careful. Smell and
memory is so efficient; if you do it wrong, you cause the
opposite of what you want to gain.”
Susana ­Cámara Leret

“We chose to work at Mistral with smell in particular
because it is so personalised: everybody has their own

19

experience and there is no right or wrong answer, which
means you can talk about what you’ve experienced on an
objective level.”
S.T.

“That’s if you take a random smell; you can talk about your
experience or lack of it. If you start to use smell to trigger
a specific memory as therapy – to track back to when the
addiction started – that’s a completely different story. For
those sorts of projects, I’m there for therapeutic reasons,
to trigger memories of what caused the problem, to replicate it via smell, train awareness beyond old ­prejudices.
That’s the only way smell can somehow work as a therapy
tool. But who is going to make those smells? It’s a lot of
work! If we, in the future, have a scenario or a situation
where this is the case, and smell can be used in this manner, we need a professional team that really understands
the chemistry of smell and how you can compose it, so
that we can create a narrative. I haven’t done too much research in the field of addiction, but I can sort of imagine…
how – as our senses are super alert and part of the therapy
is to find the reason why the patient became addicted – or
why the patient couldn’t cope with certain things. Could
smell help you to overcome those traumas? The only way
I think it can help is that you train awareness towards that
smell, from that very moment, by de-contextualising that
smell from its (original) context.
Hopefully in the future it won’t be surprising for patients
and clinicians to use scent as an integrated part of therapy.
The first step now is to make people aware about this; that
it’s not just about touching and speaking and playing, but
that we care about all aspects of you: your nose and your
taste and your touch; it’s all i­ mportant.”
S.C.L.

“Slowly exposing them to different levels of the smell
­experience.”

20

S.T.

“There is big potential. Like in post-traumatic stress. Not
everybody gets addicted. But in order to find the smell
you need people who have experience in linking not just
abstract smells, which is mainly the case in our society (i.e.
to make smells that cover up other smells), but somebody
who’s been working with smell for some time. You need
chemists and scientists who have access to the chemistry
of smell, who are able to replicate or come up with smell
solutions based on these personal smell narratives; the
patients would also be telling these people their stories.
That’s why a collaboration between smell scientists and
­psychiatrists is important.”
S.C.L.

“Creating a ‘smell print’ or portrait of the person?”
S.T.

“You look at what elements from their story are important
and slowly try to trigger if smell can help. And if the situation causing the problem comes up, then you’ve got what
smell triggered that moment. Then you have to come up
with the methodology to de-contextualise the smell and
talk about the memory again. You pair it with something
positive, but each situation is different.”

How smell research might be brought further
S.C.L.

“Smell is such an elite industry, so how can you bring it to
the research level where you can implement it on a wider
scale?”
S.T.

“That’s the tricky bit. So far the industry is not at this level;
they don’t see the need because it doesn’t make money.
An alternative is to come up with sufficient and precise

21

research to show the possibilities of this use of smell, for
example leading to a scientific paper that proves that this
specific molecule can be sold for this amount of money.
It’s about time that we look at flavours, smells and chemical components for other kinds of purposes and really put
out some money to do serious research for different types
of applications. There’s a whole world that could benefit
from that. That’s what I do, but I’m just one little person
and it’s not possible to do your research without having
access to the knowledge. Again we are talking about investment for the research, the headspace analysis, because it’s
a lot of money. So the more people who do interesting stuff
in the field of smell, the more pressure there will be on the
industry – I’m talking about those five, six companies that
control everything on smell and taste on the entire planet.
And it’s fantastic research that could be used for other
purposes!”

Smells trigger memory
S.T.

“Smell is the most efficient tool to trigger memory, that’s
for sure. All ­aspects of it, in terms of traumas in the past.
If you want to trigger that, smell is very efficient. Memory
is also a learning tool. If you change your habits and learn
the context of a smell you will get a reminder later in life
by using it. Using the nose as a tool for play or communication is always efficient because there is no h
­ ierarchy,
there are no rules: he’s not better than her. And since smell
is so individual, everybody’s stories are fantastic, whether
I know the smell or not; one always has some relation to it
or has something to say about it.”
S.C.L.

“As we experienced in Mistral, smells make people want
to talk.”

22

S.T.

“In general it’s very difficult to speak about smell. So if
one manages to get a conversation at all around a smell, I
think it’s a first step in a very important direction because
people smell something and normally it stops at good, or
bad. What’s most essential here is to develop a methodology where you trigger people to go beyond that. That’s why
children are so fantastic; they have no prejudices and are
very naïve but they have alert senses. Very often, when I
do workshops with, let’s say Mercedes, there is a child as a
kind of coach to show participants how it works. The older
we get, the more (of this sensibility) we lose, because we
don’t play enough. And we all know how fantastic it is to
play! The nose is an incredibly good toy for this. When you
have smell present, the more crazy the smells are, the more
people have fun. I have not been in one situation where
people are not on the floor from laughter when some smell
got presented… and this would be 40, 50 or 60 year olds,
you name it! Why is the smell of dog shit so funny? If I put
up the smell of a rose, do people laugh? No! Essentially
we’re not used to having these other, everyday smells
presented to us like that. If you manage to focus on something unconventional, that’s a good way to find out a lot of
things; there is a lot of potential in this through smell.”

23

24

Attributing design research to care
Interview with Berend Hofman, healthcare psychologist at Mistral

Just after completing a last testing round of the Smell-Memory Kit: The Molecules
that Matter, Susana Cámara Leret meets up with Berend Hofman, GZ-psychologist with whom she closely collaborated during her research at Mistral, clinic for
youth addicts. Talking through their experiences of the collaboration, Cámara
Leret recounts a few things the participants said during the testing of the kit.
Quotes such as “It’s a great ice breaker!” and “Since you are asked to share your
associations, it makes talking easier and you keep on talking,” immediately spring
to mind.
Early on in her Research Associateship Cámara Leret visited Mistral. She was
interested in researching the possibilities of using smell as a tool to offer new
services for the rehabilitation clinic. Hofman: “I was immediately interested to
use smell in a psychological process, because the act of smelling is very primal. It
is processed by the brain differently than sound or sight. Smell has a direct impact
on the limbic system and therefore easily triggers emotions. As such, smell is a
great tool to use in therapy.”
The first meetings Cámara Leret and Hofman had were wild brainstorms on how
smell could be applied in the clinic. Both mention that the benefits of the project
became clear over time. Cámara Leret: “The discussions I had with Berend really
helped to shape the project.” Hofman: “A design process is different to a therapy
trajectory, therefore it was a refreshing addition to our work: the work of a psychologist is very practical, whereas a design process initially involves much more
talking and scoping the field.” Hofman helped Cámara Leret with the psychological terminology such as ‘modelling’. That is a very effective tool in psychology,
which Cámara Leret attributed to the Kindred Sprits series – a series of creatures
that live in the clinic, which respond to the mood of the patients and try to relieve
it. (more information on page 47)
The initial discussions on ‘using smell’ developed into the Smell-Memory Kit comprising of eight different single-molecule scents. Each of these molecules are
found in different smells (for instance the same molecule is found in faeces and
spoiled refrigerated chicken) and therefore there is no definitive right or wrong

25

answer to what the molecules smell like. Hofman: “We left it up to the patients if
they wanted to participate in the initial smelling sessions. I would ask if it would
be okay if Susana joined them. They were all very eager to participate and try out a
new step. Even the most anti-social patients wanted to be part of the experience. It
was a learning curve how to use the kit and what questions we would ask. To guide
the conversations between the patients, we chose to work with psychologists who
are open to try new things.”
The final project consists of a smell box that Mistral will use for their intake
­sessions, discussions with the youth addicts and generally as an exciting new tool
for therapy. Hofman: “The kit offers the perfect opportunity to conduct an introduction interview or an open discussion, and as such it helps us to get to know the
patients. Furthermore, since everyone has different associations with smell, it also
triggers conversations amongst the patients.”
Hofman elaborates on the special results the collaboration has revealed: “Care in
the Netherlands has to be efficient. If an idea or project doesn’t enhance efficiency
in the clinic, it would be marked as ‘frivolous’: every hour that’s not spent with
the patients is not seen as productive. As a result, for these projects it is difficult
to free up time or arrange funding and often they wouldn’t be developed further.
Psychologists have a hard time defending their work, since research could also be
about less good qualities of humanity, which often find incomprehension of society. Therefore, there could even be some kind of resistance within the psychology
field towards projects that are not scientific from the outset or which are not based
on laws and previous knowledge, which would be hard to prove with numbers.”
The clinic had worked with designers before, so did not have to be convinced that
working with designers could lead to projects integrated in the clinic – beyond a
new design for the living room, that is. Hofman was immediately enthusiastic to
collaborate on the project: “Attributing design research to care is an interesting
development. I really see the benefits of working with designers, because therapy
hasn’t had many fresh influences recently. We do not use creative research tools,
which – as we have proved – could be very important. If psychologists would try
to make changes, it would be the ‘psychology way’ so it wouldn’t break with our
­routines and would therefore not lead to such interesting results. The Smell-­Memory
Kit is an interesting side-step that we are very eager to explore. In the future­
we may call in designers earlier on in the process, at the very moment we detect
a problem.”

26

The sensory research was developed at the Mistral Rehabilitation Clinic in Den Haag,
The Netherlands (image by: Daniel Gaciu)

27

The Smell-Memory Kit:
Diving for memories to share
Valentijn Visch

The Smell-Memory Kit, as developed by Susana Cámara Leret within the CRISP
G-Motiv project, is an example of a Product Service System (PSS) in which a
product is designed to increase the effect of an existing service. This PSS is
­result–oriented[1] which in this case means that the product remains in possession of the company and in which the user is mainly interested in the result
of the service and less in the process of receiving the service. For the Smell-­
Memory Kit the service consisted of addiction treatment as provided to young
addicts by the Mistral clinic, in The Hague, the Netherlands. Part of the treatment
­entailed linking, that is, ‘buddying’ a new patient to an existing patient within the
­program. The Smell-Memory Kit is used to enhance the process of buddying by
persuading the participants (both new patient and buddy) to share stories.
The process of persuasion in the Smell-Memory Kit can be described using the
Persuasive Game Design (PGD) model as developed by G-Motiv[5] – see Figure 1.
The user occupies a central position in the model since the objective of PGD is
to change the user’s behaviour; in the present context the aim is for an increased
intensity of the user’s social relationship with the buddy. The means to change
the behaviour are provided by game elements that move the user from a real
world experience (the experience of daily life) into a game world experience
(which is enjoyable, engaging, feels free and safe, and provides direct feedback).
Game-­elements are motivating elements that are typically used in games, such
as rewards, competition, collaboration, chance or fantasy. With regard to the
Smell-Memory Kit, the designed game-element is the memory-evoking smells.
While smells trigger personal episodic memories, but it may be difficult to
­verbalise the memories exactly. Smells may evoke a feeling of recognition but you
may be unable to specify the content of the recognition by describing the cause of
the smell or by remembering the fully related episode of the past. As such, smells
may bring the user into a world of memories and carry the user away from his or
her present world. Moreover, the experienced gap between sensing recognition
and actually remembering it fully may function like a matching game–element.

28

That is, it motivates the (Smell-Memory Kit) participant to find the explicit m
­ atching
memory of the experienced smell, by entering the world of personal episodic
memories. This world of episodic memories is echoed here, where magic-realism
author, Rushdie, uses the metaphor of oceans of stories and the river of time:
Luka, “looked into the water and saw there the thousand thousand thousand and
one different strands of liquid, flowing together, twining around and around one
another, flowing in and out of another, and turning into a different thousand
thousand thousand and one strands of liquid […] the whole history of everything
was flowing along before his very eyes, transformed into shining, mingling,
­multi-coloured story streams”[4]. In our scenario, the matching game would be
to pick the right colour and streams to complete the multimodal episode that is
activated[3] but is not fully recalled by the smell – for instance with regard to what
you did, what you felt, what you wore, where you were, what you saw, with whom
you were, and what you heard. The transfer effect of the Smell-Memory Kit ­consists
of the increased social buddy relationship in terms of social interaction and
social bonding[2].
Real World
Experience:
Reluctant to
share stories

Transfer
Design:
Increase social
relation with
buddy

Figure 1:
Application of the
Persuasive Game
Design model of the
Smell-Memory Kit

Game World
Experience:
Episodic memory
sharing

Persuasive games, which could lead to behavioural changes in the real world,
bring some ethical issues to the fore. With regard to the present context, the new
Mistral patient might be unwilling to share personal stories to the assigned buddy
because the stories may be shameful, or because he or she doesn’t yet know the
buddy very well. However, the game-elements of the smell sensation as well as the

29

episodic memory retrieval might let the user temporarily forget the cause of her
unwillingness to share. In the end, the patient might feel regret at ‘being tricked’ as
if he or she was secretly slipped with some sort of ‘truth serum’. I believe that these
hypothetical ethical problems can be covered by the following arguments. Firstly,
the patient knows that the total treatment at Mistral will involve several modules
that are all aimed to change the (addict’s) behaviour. A patient agrees to the behavioural change, and to be subject to therapeutic treatments targeted to effect this
change. Secondly, the smell workshop is guided by a professional therapist who
controls the memories that are told, with respect to the patient’s wellbeing, after
the smell workshop. Thirdly, the client is informed about the game during the
instruction, and can prepare for the session, and will thus not be ‘secretly tricked’
via scent. Finally, the patient remains in control about the sharing of any memories. A memory might be retrieved by the smells and the matching game, but once
the memory is retrieved the patient is still in control about the sharing process;
the patient might share only a part of it or make a small modification – in contrast
to a truth serum. Summarised, the Smell-Memory Kit is exemplary of PGD and­
it is our hope that future research can validate the exact transfer effect on
social ­relationships.

How would you
like to interact
with games in
the future?
From the Future of
Gaming, 2011 by:
Lattitude, International
research consultancy
www.latd.com

71% I’d like if I could take
action in games by gesturing
or moving my body
56% I’d like if objects could
sense when I’m interacting
with them and register
that online or convey that
information to other objects
53% I’d like to see
virtual enviornments or
digital content overlaid
onto the real world
44% I’d like a game that
I could interact with
just by thinking
43% I’d like a game that
automatically senses
and reacts to my mood
or bodily state
38% I’d like to see more
games that register when
I’m at a certain place or
near a certain person
31

Habitat

THEN

Past addictions

HERE

32

Molecules

Kindred Spirits

THERE

The lesser known

33

34

Design fictions rooted in the present
Ré Dubhthaigh

Susana Cámara Leret’s work at the Readership in Strategic Creativity has developed along two parallel tracks – the first grounded in direct user engagement and
observation realised as the Smell-Memory Kit, and the other which is more speculative, resulting in a set called Kindred Spirits. While at first it may seem there is little
to link the two except a shared body of research, they are in fact deeply linked in
both their intent and physical expression. These projects exist at different ends of
an evolutionary spectrum; one anchored in the limits of a mundane present and
the other in the possibilities of the future.
We can imagine the Smell-Memory Kit as a sort of distant ancestor of Kindred ­Spirits,
separated by a thousand generations along an evolutionary pathway through
­synthetic biology, advanced robotics and behavioural psychology. This notion
of evolution has emerged as key to Cámara Leret’s work – using the language of
nature to frame her response to the rehabilitation centre where she conducted
her research, and its residents. In this metaphor, the clinic becomes a habitat that
shapes species; they evolve to fulfil particular niches and respond to the wider ecosystem of human and non-human actors with whom they share the environment.
The starting point for much design fiction is a single technological innovation,
extrapolating from this to expose potential impacts and challenges. However,
Kindred Spirits has emerged using a more grounded approach, from engaging with
real people in real circumstances, in time becoming companion species for the
centre’s residents. As outlined elsewhere in this volume, the idea of companion
species is directly influenced by the work of Donna Haraway but also draws on
the approach of UK design studio BERG in their development of novel consumer
electronics. While their little printer device is often derided as a toy for the east
London creative classes, we can similarly read it as an evolutionary stepping stone
between the mobile phone in our pocket and the truly autonomous companion
species* embedded in homes and workplaces.
Kindred Spirits is one such autonomous companion, fantastic in appearance and
behaviour existing within a clearly defined social and cultural world. By placing
a set of these more fantastical creations in today’s rehabilitation centre, Cámara

35

Leret provides rich design opportunities to stretch and shape the present. This is
not an imagined dystopia or proximate future, but a community and place in The
Hague, in 2012/13. Like fairy folk or medieval angels, her creatures allow us to
exploit fantasy and talk about the less explicit behaviours and motivations of the
residents. In turn, these new insights can inform interventions in the present day,
such as the Smell-Memory Kit.
The layering of this speculative otherworld over our present reality is a useful
design research approach, preventing us from feeling trapped in present constraints or losing ourselves completely to a ‘science-fictionalised’ discourse. Like
the ‘Game World’ as described by Valentijn Visch (p 28), the interplay between the
mundane and the fantastic allows us to do things we normally wouldn’t do.
Designers such as Cámara Leret fully exploit such an interstitial position, by
bridging the immediate and the speculative, embracing both pragmatic experimentation and critical reflection. Designing at both ends of the spectrum at the
same time advances the present and the future. Within a project such as Kindred
Spirits, Cámara Leret’s work can help the wider team uncover new avenues or opportunities to explore. The Smell-Memory Kit and Kindred Spirits balance real needs
and imagined desires for the benefit of the designer, project partners, centre staff
and residents alike.

* a term coined by Donna Haraway as per the title of her famous treatise: 'The Companion

Design fictions:
stories from the ‘new now’
A dialogue between Susana Cámara Leret and Anab Jain, led by Bas Raijmakers

Anab Jain, founder of Superflux, a multidisciplinary design company based
in London and Ahmedabad, expresses her passion for speculative design. An
­approach closely linked to Kindred Spirits. Anab participated in the Open Design
Space A Message for Oblivion; a crash course on design research, led by Cámara
Leret at Design Academy Eindhoven, where the notion of using fictions and
­fantasy­as tools to construct possible futures was introduced. In an interview led
by Bas Raijmakers, these two design researchers explore the potential of design
fictions, storytelling, and the power and limits of design languages in communicating possible futures from the ‘new now’.
Speculative design focusses on creating products for the mind in order to
­empower people, start a critical debate or explore future scenarios. Both Anab
Jain of Superflux, an agency that is well known for its speculative approach, and
Susana Cámara Leret strongly believe that design fictions can help people cope
with uncertainties, providing a channel to engage with future situations and
critically reflect on current society. Design’s wide set of methods and tools can
provide a powerful means to explore these experiences.
Anab Jain

“What storytelling techniques allow us to do is create a
compelling immersion into a credible, near-future world.
By using rich, evocative methods of storytelling we are
presenting the diverse possibilities that the future holds,
in a more emotional way. Creating experiential worlds, we
try to produce profound insights into the needs and desires that will drive near-future products and services. Our
starting point is based on research to understand emotionally, and on an experiential level, what it might feel like
to live in these worlds: how might we interact with their
technologies, what sorts of products and services might
be used, will they make us comfortable, will they make us
angry? Storytelling is a very powerful means to do that.”

37

Bas Raijmakers

“… As opposed to a more rational approach to thinking
about the future. Would you say then that these stories are
from the future, rather than about the future?”
A.J.

“They are from the future but not necessarily that far off
into the future to feel like science-fiction. They are linked
to current day realities, extrapolating present trends,
drawing on the differences between pure science-fiction
and something we are designing today. Any technology we
talk about is already ­either in the lab or in the marketplace.
We are interested in the interactions and the ­experiences
with or surrounding these technologies. We tend to use the
term ­design futurescaping. The interest is in understanding
how to make things that tell stories, to create differences of
near-future worlds.”
B.R.

“Was the relationship between storytelling and experience
also explored within the design research project Kindred
Spirits?”
Susana Cámara Leret

“The experiential level was key throughout the process.
We were working within a clinic for addiction and rehabilitation, with patients 15 to 25 years old, who live there
over a period of four to six months. From the start, we were
immersed in a scientific process with our project collaborators who were very much focussed on extracting facts
from the surrounding context and realities of the patients.
The use of storytelling allowed the patients to provide a
different storyline to that which they are normally confronted with, through scientific ­research within the clinic.
This allows them to explain their experiences, and ­creates
tools to address these more critically.
In this context of the clinic, sharing stories is very
relevant to optimise t­herapy. For the clinicians, it was

38

important to understand other possibilities to talk about
these stories in a less confronting manner. We realised
that smell could be a very interesting means to bring out
these abstract narratives, as it is so fuzzy and helps you
bring back abstract memories from your past. Memories
with many emotional associations paired to the smells. In
this manner it [smell] facilitated talking about unpleasant
experiences from a more sheltered, abstract context. So
we began by researching and understanding these stories,
asking them to create at first narratives from random
scents, but also by analysing the space of the clinic on a
sensory level and walking through these personal sensory
maps of the clinic.
These experiences outlined that there was a clash between
their perception of the clinic and the time spent in these
spaces. We grounded the speculative designs in these experiences, by co-creating with the patients a series of fictional
­companions (aka Kindred Spirits) who would react to their
behaviours at each location, by populating the space.
These highlighted the everyday interactions that take place
between the patients, and between the patients and technological devices. We used the patients’ personal experiences to create this fictional world, which facilitated their
thinking about the therapy process, through an imagined
relationship with a fictional creature.”
Empowering and engaging multiple futures
B.R.

“In this speculative work there is in some way somewhere
an empowering of people, which aims to get them to
­engage with the present in more critical ways and to speculate on how it could be different.”
A.J.

“There is always the question of how much people know
and ask about it, how much does it impact on us? There
are two sides to it, as you are creating the work primarily

39

to get people to start thinking and questioning the status
quo. Not all of that is translated into immediate action.
Firstly, it allows you to create an atmosphere of critical
thinking, a questioning of technology as something that
is not always positive in our lives. Secondly, this approach
saves resources and investments for potential clients. This
is because in a week they can have many prototypes, quickly made near-future worlds, and understand the potentials
of these worlds, seeing the pros and cons before going into
one. Therefore, there is an element of risk that we think
about, which is why we say ‘we design for risk’. We keep in
mind the changes and the shifts around the cultural trends
before we start designing something. There are many ways
in which this practice bridges the gap between pure foresight work and pure service or interaction design.”
S.C.L.

“In a previous discussion with Berend Hofman, clinician
and occupational psychologist from Mistral, he outlined
that changes or innovations in their practice were very
slow. He highlighted that relevant principles to his profession and delivering care emerged from these quick, iterative prototypes that were developed alongside the patients’
experiences.”
B.R.

“I suppose it showed him another way of working with the
future and testing assumptions. Could we say that, in this
type of situation, you both attempt to multiply the future
as opposed to reducing uncertainties?”
A.J.

“Absolutely. Most people have trouble dealing with the
idea of one future, let alone multiple futures. There are
very short-sighted roadmaps out there, but there isn’t one
future, there is never going to be this one future. When
we look at the methods applied by foresight and scenario
planning organisations to think about the future, we find

40

that there are so many overlaps and our design method
– perhaps a more organic approach – is more effective in
creating these multiple futures. So more creative design
methods need to be applied for organisations that are really forward thinking.”
B.R.

“In fact I believe in (the) Dutch (language), the plural of future doesn’t even exist! You can say ‘future visions’, but not
‘futures’, so imagine the difficulty of explaining this idea
within a Dutch context. And within these plural, multiple
futures, critical engagement and empowerment go hand in
hand – you have to critically engage to empower.”
A.J.

“You have to critically engage and empower people because there is not one road to follow. For us, the future is
so locked in ‘pay off your mortgage’, ‘make sure your child
gets a proper education’; we plan our lives in such a linear
way that to get people to think of multiple possibilities at
each junction is quite difficult, as we did in a project called
The Power of 8, where we realised that there is quite a lot
of conflict, as everyone has their own vision of the future.
There is this possessiveness of the future. But once people
get their head around this, it’s quite empowering because
they begin to realise its possibilities. We try to make clear
that there is a junction at each section in life.
Also, at a larger socio-cultural level things are already
happening that are actually stranger than the design fictions we work with; we’ve termed this the ‘strange now’.
So what we are interested in doing is to pull out some of
these themes and extrapolate them again to the future. For
example in a recent project on synthetic biology we are not
looking at the future of technology, but at the implications
on healthcare. We have created a scenario were the National Health Service becomes the National Health Insurance.
As we all know, people’s genetic profiles become measurable. Based on your risk for disease you pay insurance

41

contributions, so you are paying for your future healthcare
needs. This scenario scares people, but in fact it’s already
happening at an invisible, quiet level.”
The place of technology and the role of design
B.R.

“This tactic is also a means to empower people to think
about alternatives, as those parts that people consider ‘the
future’ are already here, which brings us back to allowing
people to experience that, instead of telling them about it.
Is this what the power of design can do?”
S.C.L.

“It very much materialises that possibility, allowing a direct experience of processes that are already on-going in
our surroundings. In the context of M
­ istral, the interactions materialised through the Kindred Spirits series came
from real processes that were already taking place in that
context; patients needed focus points to create awareness
and alert themselves and others when group d
­ ynamics led
to exacerbated behaviour. On another level, we regularly
carry devices that accomplish not only an expected technological function, but are also gaining in emotional and
psychological meaning. Speculative design provides a lens
through which you can look at the present more critically.
It’s not about a massive leap, but finding a small interaction to re-address existing products and services.”
A.J.

“Power is the richness of the medium, the richness of the
techniques that we can use from hypothetical products, to
multiple media, to storytelling, to prototyping. We have a
wide and rich set of methods and tools, as designers, to
be able to create these experiences. The drawback is that
we haven’t been able to articulate the real value of it rigorously. We, as designers, are not often the most articulate.

42

We tend to rely a lot on our design skills and our ability to
show, but perhaps we can begin to put more focus in creating a space for articulation around these ideas. How do
we get the attention of people / strategic decision-makers
to truly recognise the value of this way of thinking and
designing? Most people are scared of the risk that such a
proposition could bring in.”
B.R.

“Perhaps this is probably not going to be a design language, as the ­design thinking movement also has its limitations; its role is to bring more design l­anguage at the
strategic level but it doesn’t accomplish to make this speculative work understood. How do these speculative stories
find their way back into everyday life?”
TEM, an alternative currency
introduced in Volos, Greece.
An example of recent grassroots ­strategies developed by
communities struggling in the
­financial crisis.

S.C.L.

“It’s no longer the role of the designer to bring back these
ideas into ­society. It’s something that emerges collectively. As we have seen with recent ­social movements due to
the economic crisis, like the creation of a new currency
in Greece or the political situation in Spain. The crisis has
brought a shift in values, so people are re-addressing what
kind of ­futures they would want to live in. More and more
they have an active role within these discussions, by actively participating in these movements.”
B.R.

“The crisis has opened up multiple futures. There’s also an
understanding that the developments we thought we were
in perhaps were no longer working, and we have hit the
bottom at some point. What would be the role of technology within such a situation?”

43

A.J.

“Technology, in terms of technological tools and cheap
access to them, has meant a sort of empowerment. Things
that make the ‘invisible visible’, things that might not
have been seen before, now come through the Twitter
feeds. Suddenly there’s a whole new level of transparency
through the tools we have. On another level, technologies
can be re-used, hacked and adapted in unpredictable ways.
This access to tools democratises technologies but also
results in a loss of control: where there is 3D printing you
also have 3D printed guns. The problem is that it is always
presented as the shiny thing, but perhaps its role will also
become more critical. I feel technology is more like ‘the
material’ whilst design is ‘the medium’. We can shape that
material by questioning it and showing the various sides of
it. That’s the role of futurescaping: hypothetical, multiple,
alternate worlds. Bruce Sterling, the science-fiction and
design critic, uses the term ‘diegetic prototypes’; creating
worlds which become diegetic prototype bodies, within
which these ­
various forms of technology will inhabit.
It is a question of the place of technology versus the role
of design.”

30,000 people take over the Plaza del Sol in Madrid,
during the Indignados revolts in 2011

44

From ‘Notes of a Sports Writer’s Daughter’
Donna Haraway

Ms Cayenne Pepper continues to colonise all my cells – a sure case of what the
­biologist Lynn Margulis calls symbiogenesis. I bet if you checked our DNA, you’d find
some potent transfections between us. Her saliva must have the viral vectors. Surely,
her darter-tongue kisses have been irresistible. Even though we share placement in
the phylum of vertebrates, we inhabit not just different genera and divergent families,
but altogether different orders.
How would we sort things out? Canid, hominid; pet, professor; bitch, woman; ­animal,
human; athlete, handler. One of us has a microchip, injected under her neck skin for
identification; the other has a photo ID California driver’s licence. One of us has a
written record of her ancestors for twenty generations; one of us does not know her
great grandparents’ names. One of us, product of a vast genetic mixture, is called
‘pure-bred’. One of us, equally product of a vast mixture, is called ‘white’. Each of
these names designates a racial discourse, and we both inherit their consequences
in our flesh.
One of us is at the cusp of flaming, youthful, physical achievement; the other is
lusty but over the bill. And we play a team sport called agility on the same expropriated N
­ ative land where Cayenne’s ancestors herded merino sheep. These
sheep were ­imported from the already colonial pastoral economy of Australia to
feed the ­California Gold Rush 49ers. In layers of history, layers of biology, layers of
­naturecultures, complexity is the name of our game. We are both the freedom-­hungry
offspring of conquest, products of white settler colonies, leaping over hurdles and
crawling through tunnels on the playing field.
I’m sure our genomes are more alike than they should be. There must be some
molecular record of our touch in the codes of living that will leave traces in the
world, no matter that we are each reproductively silenced females, one by age,
one by surgery. Her red merle Australian Shepherd’s quick and lithe tongue has
swabbed the tissues of my tonsils, with all their eager immune system receptors.
Who knows where my chemical receptors carried her messages, or what she took
from my cellular system for distinguishing self from other and binding outside­
to inside?

45

We have had forbidden conversation; we have had oral intercourse; we are bound in
telling story upon story with nothing but the facts. We are training each other in acts
of communication we barely understand. We are, constitutively, companion species.
We make each other up, in the flesh. Significantly other to each other, in specific
足difference, we signify in the flesh a nasty development infection called love. This love is
an historical aberration and a naturalcultural legacy.

46

The Kindred Spirits Series
Susana Cámara Leret

The Kindred Spirits series consists of design fictions proposals that explore current
relationships between patients from Mistral rehabilitation clinic, staff and their facility. The series presents two design outcomes, co-created with the patients from
the clinic. These Kindred Spirits were inspired by the patients’ daily experiences,­
aiming to envision and understand alternate possibilities for the systems and services offered in the clinic.
Design fictions can challenge existing preconceptions regarding the use of objects
and their environments. The staged interactions these design artefacts present
often lead to critical discussions, which expand on the role of technology in society, and consider wider needs and expectations derived from its implementation.
The Kindred Spirits series contextualises this discussion, exploring the creation of
collective future visions by embedding the design process within the everyday
experiences of the patients.
The work began through sensory interviews, where each patient was asked to draw
a map of the clinic’s location and select three random spaces, based on their smell,
sound and colour. Photographing, collecting and recording different samples
of smells, sounds and personal anecdotes at each location, we walked through
the clinic whilst discussing individual experiences. These exercises show that
­patients’ perceptions of the clinic often clash with the activities held there: the
joint living / dining room for example, where patients spend 80% of their time,
was perceived as the most stressful and anxiety causing area by the majority, due
to an excessive amount of noise.
The insights on the sensory landscape of Mistral prompted a series of creative,
speculative sessions. These did not aim to find a solution for the patients’ personal
afflictions, but hoped to provide the necessary distance and objectivity to ignite a
critical reflection on the clinic’s environment. The idea of ‘focus points’ emerged,
as interventions in the different spaces that could provide a physical / mental
space for reflection and introspection. Inspired by Matt Jones’ (BERG) ideas
on the behaviour of sensate devices[1] and notions of significant otherness from

47

­Donna Haraway’s Companion Species manifesto[2], we proceeded to explore the kind
of fictional and hybrid ‘beings’ that could populate such zones.
Imagining the kind of interactions that could result from living alongside these
fictional species, we began to flesh out the concept of the Kindred Spirits, focussing
on commonly overlooked behaviours of the patients in relation to their environment and to each other. The term ‘kindred spirits’ is an expression in the English
language that alludes to someone who shares beliefs, attitudes, feelings, or features with oneself. Each of the Kindred Spirits therefore discloses a different set of
ordinary encounters that reveal implicit desires and needs of the patients.
The following design proposals metaphorically represent two circumstances and
conditions that patients encounter in Mistral. Each Kindred Spirit was materialised with the collaboration of medical illustrator, Maartje Kunen. Imagining
these daily encounters in the context of Mistral provided the patients and staff
with the aforementioned ‘focus points’, to collectively address desired behavioural
­patterns and routines, building confidence in the treatment and rehabilitation.

The Story
Efforts to free our technological devices from the
constraints of human ­resemblance point to increasingly sophisticated and animated sensing tools. The
­inclusion of biological elements – such as cells, proteins
or molecules into sensing technologies and a
­ dvanced
software – filters natural evolutionary processes to
concrete needs, which suggest new relationships ­with
these agents. In understanding the world around
them, these hybrid ‘companion species’ now watch,
smell and listen to and for us. But what happens when
technology claims humans as its own?
Evolved into physical / digital extensions of ourselves,
they are offspring of our own compulsions, with
­acquired obsessions that inform new interactions, as
they unintentionally design our own evolution.

49

Listening to it is relaxing as
it releases frequencies that
induce alpha brainwaves,
which help to calm down

50

Story Kindred 1 — Hertzog

“Sometimes you can’t
hear your own mind”
(Mistral patient, 2013)

“Spending time in the living room is sometimes difficult; there
is too much noise and that has become disturbing to us [the
­patients]. We all meet there and everyone talks at the same
time, which leads to people yelling over each other’s voices.
Unable to relax, you often need to leave the space because it’s
difficult to concentrate on your own thoughts. ‘Hertzog’ reacts
to sounds. When disturbed with the excess noise, it crawls out of
its resting place, emitting different sounds from each extremity. When I pick it up and listen to it, it calms us both. I hear a
beating tone, as if both frequencies emitted by Hertzog were
mixed by my brain; it relaxes me and the sound soothes my
thoughts...”

This Kindred Spirit listens
in on our conversations.
It samples the air and
releases molecules that
enhance or block specific
human olfactory receptors,
influencing mood and
behaviour

52

Story Kindred 2 — Gaz

“Smelling makes
you want to talk”
(Berend Hofman, Mistral 2013)

“There is a small room in which we have our first meeting in Mistral. The clinicians ask to talk about yourself and what you want
to achieve here, but this causes stress. The room has a window
that does not open so the air feels dense and u
­ ncomfortable.
‘Gaz’ likes to lie here and listen in to our conversations. Its tail is
full of nerve endings and it is has a highly evolved sense of smell.
Sometimes the conversations can get stressful and you become
tense talking about yourself. After some time, you calm down.
Then you realise that the smell has changed in the room... It’s
softer, similar to Zwitsal [baby soap]; it reminds me of my little
brothers. We start to talk about the smell...”

——
Introduction by Bas Raijmakers
Open Design Spaces (ODS) are short courses for design students spanning four
Wednesdays, in which students can be temporarily part of one of the design
­research projects at the academy. Susana Cámara Leret organised an ODS as
part of her Research Associateship, focusing on design researching with smell.
These courses are held for Design Academy Eindhoven students who respond to
an open call, as an elective part of their education. Research Associates involve
a Design Academy tutor to get support in the education and at the same time
offer an opportunity to them to experience design research from within. External
experts are invited for guest lectures, workshops or ‘crits’ of student work c
­ reated
in the Open Design Spaces in an effort to offer different perspectives on the
­design research topic. These short courses are an example of how students can
be confronted with issues, such as the ones outlined in this publication (new roles
for designers, using various (design) research methods, and so on). Responses of
students and tutors to the Open Design Spaces are a valuable way to try to understand what the implications for design education could be in terms of both topics
and skills to teach. On the one hand, designers are well positioned to take on a
more strategic role. They possess a range of skills to explore materials deeply, such
as smell for instance, and then create a concrete result from that investigation,
which has been invaluable in the role Susana Cámara Leret has picked up with her
work within CRISP. On this level, undertaking research and designing are already
connected in a very fruitful way in design education, in particular in schools like
Design Academy Eindhoven. On the other hand, much less common in design
education are the analytical skills needed to investigate the situations with which
designers intervene. In design schools, intuition is often accepted as the single
starting point for creation.
Intuition is crucial in creativity and design, but when operating on strategic l­evels,
it is not enough. To be able to have conversations with the people involved in

55

the situations where design interventions are anticipated, these situations need
to be fully understood in such a way that it is possible to discuss them with the
people living in these situations. Creating this understanding and starting these
­conversations with the people involved, in an empathetic way, is a r­equirement
that is not always supported by the skill-set designers develop during their
training. When such training is based more on artistic approaches aimed at
­
discovering your own identity as a designer, skills like analysis, reflection and
­
­empathy are less prominently developed. Yet, for designers who wish to play a
more strategic role, analysis, reflection and empathy are skills to develop on top of
both intuition and an artistic identity.
Catelijne van Middelkoop, tutor at the Open Design Space, A Message for Oblivion,
and coordinator of the Man and Communication department at Design Academy
Eindhoven, sketches her thoughts on how Open Design Spaces may be integrated
into regular (design) education.

——

56

Often accustomed to the production of visual and tangible outcomes, the students
who enrolled in the A Message for Oblivion Open Design Space (ODS) found themselves thrown into the deep end as they discovered the potential of scent as a tool
in their design process. “Can we learn anything from the past that might help us
manage our addictions in a distant future? Have you ever thought what tools we
could devise to explain to our future generations why we have sometimes failed?
Instead of sending out detailed messages, what other ways could we choose to
communicate?”
Instead of designing a fixed end-state – a widely prevalent approach to s­ olving
­design problems – through creating engaging contexts in the present, the o
­ bjective
of the ODS was to develop services and devices which would trigger future interactions between users. Although the course was initially focussed on a specific
target group – young addicts – it soon became clear that by introducing scent, an
often overlooked and ill-explored aspect of human experience (and core faculty
for exploring the world) into an educational context, a much larger field of potential correlations was open to investigate.
Design Academy Eindhoven teaching legacy

Education at Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE), partially due to the media
­success of the annual Graduation Show as well as its recurring exhibitions at
­Milan’s famed Salone del Mobile, has to a large degree focussed on the presentation
of a ­finished end product/result. This emphasis sometimes creates an asymmetric
pull of attention, affecting process and discovery. Initiatives to reinvent design
education such as the Open Design Spaces, but also the renewed program of
the ‘Propaedeutic Year’ (introductory first-year) and the new ‘Lab’ (introduced in
2013-2014), give students and educators alike a chance to re-think the essence of
design as well as the value and role of its entire process: from research, theory and
reflection, to sketching, implementing, executing and editing.
Open Design Space in the educational system

In its attempt to shine a new and welcome light on educational renewal, the ODS
offers a worthy format to explore a (rather) specific topic and create knowledge
with students, as well as empowering them to develop new skills. In order to
reach this goal a change in mentality is required, one which will enable a shift in
general focus from merely teaching and learning the ‘Software Package of Today’

57

58

to ­actually understanding and developing your own (digital) tools. Technique in
itself is just a skill; triggering the imagination and sharing this with others is key.
Theory and research can seem dry, especially when presented outside of the
­academic context and to audiences less familiar with the content in question.
Visualising the importance of the entire process does not only provide a point
of entry to different (and even new) audiences, but also enables the designer to
encounter and recognise innovative possibilities along the way. The tools which
are presently available highlight the essence of prototyping and the added ­value of
iteration, specifically tangible and visual steps to support a narrative or d
­ eepen a
concept. Prototyping can create and validate proof as well as trigger new possibilities. The role of objects extends from dreams to finished products, to supporting
actors in a story, to visual signifiers and translators of complex matter and c­ ultural
meaning. As this hierarchy is being questioned, new grounds unfold. Utopian
doodles, prototypes, props and tools, designers and engineers, hackers and
­painters… the world has become one big open source of potential.
Although each participant had his or her own individual expectations regarding
the outcome of the ODS, the students expressed interest in a longer course to
tackle some of the spin-off design problems encountered along the way. This
intense sampler of components confronted participants with other fields of
­research and design, as well as the chance to experience established and experimental approaches to specific questions and needs. Not only the participants, but
also the tutors and external professionals benefitted from this.
As the open call for participation in the ODS extended beyond the walls of the
Design Academy it created a welcome extension of the world and experience of
the academy’s students – and their possibilities. They were joined by students
from Eindhoven University of Technology and Tilburg University’s Social Science
faculty. Driven by personal interests, triggered by the possibility to discover the
unknown, students were inspired to refine their futures as designers. Critical
and aware of their capabilities, they are capable of finding paths through choices
­available in our on and off-line worlds.
Education on demand

The previous examples show that the ODS is a constructive way to re-imagine
what design education could be, as a catalyst of associative research and search

59

engine for the less obvious or travelled path. Hypothetical scenarios that came
forward from the students’ work in the ODS from ‘Smell Conspiracies’ to an
­‘Esperanto of Smell’, allowed us to follow our intuition and ignore our common
sense, to mix fact with fiction and observe that from such ingredients there is a
viable path to developing new strategies – one of the key components that enable
design education’s journey.
Now imagine the next step in design education and the integration of a truly open
design space in which a form of ‘education on demand’ will become a reality for
all students. Not driven or held back by commercial interest or ways of the past,
but urged by a hunger from within and possibilities in the world outside, utilising
means that connect to everyday needs and individualised empowerment, possibility and the capacity to aspire. An open space in which students demand and are
granted a larger say, co-authorship and choice in what they would like to learn. A
lab in which they accept the responsibilities that come along with curating and
editing this freedom, which allows and stimulates you to define your own role in
the giant network of which we are all part. Educators will continue to do what they
do well – give guidance and advice – but also are provoked to become passionate
students themselves, once more.

60

Pleun van Dijk, Nose Accessories.
­ ddressing the lack of accessories for
A
the nose, Pleun searched for forms which
could provide an aesthetic value and
protection in a future where the nose
is exploited for aesthetic, commercial,
political or security reasons.

A distinctive feature of CRISP is that it provides a platform to support Research
Associates in undertaking partnerships with diverse organisations[4]. Design practitioners are being trained to be researchers, and this entails that the designers
reconsider their practice in relation to the requirements of a partner organisation.
In this short essay I discuss the features of a speculative approach to design in
such interdisciplinary settings.
Reflecting upon her role with CRISP’s G-Motiv project, Susana Cámara Leret
outlines a diverse set of collaborators[3]. She acknowledges support from the
governmental department that funded the CRISP programme, the mentorship
of colleagues at CRISP, scientific consultancy with researchers based at other
­universities, cooperation with other designers and also with staff at the clinic
where the project was based, and the participation of the principal users – a group
of patients at the clinic. Working across this broad range of partners, C
­ ámara
Leret takes a design approach that she describes as speculative. For G-Motiv
she describes a trajectory leading to provocative illustrations and prototypes that
­‘reveal new narratives and behaviours’ around emerging technologies[3]. How does
the approach of a speculative designer interact with the commitments of partner
­organisations? Moreover, where the designer is encouraged to consider their role as
a form of research, how might features of their practice be constructively discussed?
What is speculative design?

First some background about speculative designers undertaking interdisciplinary
projects. Designers have for some time adopted strategies from artists and architects, and exhibited hypothetical objects and scenarios. These forms of public
event are seen to provide occasions for discussion and debate about technology
and society. Tony Dunne and Fiona Raby describe this approach:
Rather than writing papers and seeking conventional academic approval,
[designers] could exploit their privileged position to explore a subversive role

63

for design as social critique… Design proposals could be used as a medium to
stimulate discussion amongst the public, designers and industry.[6]
Here Dunne and Raby suggest that designers can initiate a critical discussion
about the implications of emerging technologies. Workshops, exhibitions and
publications provide an opportunity for public encounters with design and representations of design to bring about debate, where discussion flows out of or
somehow impinges upon the experience. Some examples of exhibitions include
Design and the Elastic Mind[1], and NOWHERE/NOW/HERE[9], Designing Critical
Design[12], WHAT IF…[7] and IMPACT![8].
In 2004, scientific institutions funded two speculative designers to lead ­public
engagement of science and technology projects. Hybrids was funded by the
­
Wellcome Trust (Ashcroft & Caccavale), Biojewellery by the Engineering and
Physical Sciences Research Council (Thompson & Kerridge). In both Hybrids and
­Biojewellery there is a clear move from notions of debate rooted in an internal
­critique of design, to versions of public engagement that share the floor with
science educators and funding councils. Here is a move away from a model of
practice where the designer is an iconoclast, towards an interdisciplinary model
where the designer is working with scientists, social scientists and researchers
from other backgrounds.
What does the creative industry and innovation in the Netherlands have in common with the public engagement of science and technology in the UK? I suggest
that in both cases, a speculative approach becomes extended through the support
of a partner organisation. Here, disciplinary notions of design for debate become
mixed with the requirements of a partnership programme, for example to perform
service innovation or enable public engagement. These forms of interdisciplinarity are opportunities for more robust descriptions of designers’ speculative
impulse for debate about emerging technology.
Issues arising from collaboration where speculation and engagement mix

I would like to offer some brief discussion around the mixing of a speculative
approach to design with the commitments of partnership projects. Lacking
­
­personal experience with G-Motiv, I move to a case with which I am more familiar. ­Material Beliefs was a three-year project supporting collaborations between
­speculative designers and biomedical researchers for the public engagement of

64

science and technology[10]. The two snapshots below draw upon interviews with
designers and researchers from one of four collaborations in Material Beliefs.
The first snapshot raises an issue about partner expectations around the ­designer’s
role. During an exit interview with the designer and researchers, there was
much reflection on disciplinary differences, which were conceptualised as the
‘looseness’ of a design approach, and the ‘specificity’ of scientific approach. The
­perception of design’s looseness was expressed by researchers in terms of the
conceptual development of the outcome, particularly the open-ended nature
of the interpretation of that design, and also its evaluation. These issues were
somewhat compounded by a lack of clarity about the designer’s approach, as one
researcher commented:
That’s something we could have benefited from. A sort of “well what is a designer supposed to do” up the front, at the start. If some sort criteria had been
suggested, by which we can measure it by. So we know, “Oh OK. In the design
world, that’s good.” Because the criteria for measuring things in the design
world might be completely different to the science world. And I think we just
didn’t know what to expect.[5]
Ambiguity about the nature of the designer’s approach and role, play out in two
ways. Firstly, the researchers see design as enabling the positive public promotion
of the research by bringing additional features outside of their competencies, and
ascribing what is described as a ‘wow factor’ to their research. Secondly, from
the perspective of the designer, his role becomes restricted by expectations that
design ‘packages’ the research in order to provide publicity. This is seen to compromise a speculative approach so that the outcomes “becomes a decoration of
science” and where the designer “could have become [the researchers’] PR”[5].
A second key issue emerged around the extent to which a speculative design
should incorporate the technologies being developed by biomedical researchers.
One designer was permitted and indeed encouraged to make a prototype that would
be functional, rather than hypothetical. The designer commented on this issue:
My practice in the past few years been very much about collaborating with
people and looking at the way you use design in order to discuss specific
social cultural issues around scientific research and about producing often
quite highly provocative projects… One of the things that made me really

65

question what I was doing, or what I’ve done, was [the researchers’] willingness to let me actually be involved with [their] research. And also hands-on, to
actually implement [the researchers’] scientific research in a way that could be
used. That was extremely exciting for me, but I think it also provoked conflict.
Coming from a perspective that’s only engaged at an intellectual level, as with
thought experiments, the moment that you have a hands-on approach then
you have to justify why you’re doing that, and that was a massive learning
curve for me.[5]
In this case, the researchers are working with animal cells, and so there were ethical and legal implications regarding the ways that their work was presented and
embodied in a collaborative design. In order to deliver a prototype for Material
­Beliefs the designer decided he had two options: to disengage from the collaborative opportunity and make a thought experiment, or to deliver a functional prototype that would not be controversial.
Conclusion

In this short essay I discussed features of a speculative approach to design in
interdisciplinary settings. I started with some background to speculative design,
and a provocation that this approach is being challenged and extended by partnership programmes. Then, not possessing any personal insights into the G-Motiv
project, I moved from Cámara Leret’s reflections on her role there, to another
project where speculative designers worked in interdisciplinary groups. I offered
two empirical snapshots from Material Beliefs in order to raise issues arising
from collaboration. Firstly biomedical researchers were confused by speculative
design, and hoped that the designer would act to promote their research to the
public. Secondly, the hypothetical nature of the designer’s approach was problematised by the opportunity to functionally integrate biotechnology in the prototype,
thereby putting pressure on ambitions for controversy. Such issues, arising from
action on the ground, format a design as it comes together, which may or may not
be familiar to speculative designers working in programmes with various organisations. However, I contend that an empirical discussion of this kind is valuable
when designers wish to provide accounts of their practice as a form of research.
For while speculative designers will continue to have exhibitions, and have their
designs curated and published in catalogues, it is through attention to the detail of
what is enabled during collaboration, and the issues that arise there, that constitute a productive reflection of practice.

The Creative Industry Scientific Programme (CRISP) has as its goal to understand better what strategic roles designers can play in society and the economy.
­Companies in the creative industries can benefit from this because strategic
designers have the right skills base to play a bigger part in creating solutions for
complex problems, rather than just executing solutions that others – business
consultants and policy makers for instance – have already defined. Also, the
­organisations that commission strategic designers can benefit from gaining this
understanding because a more creative economy will be more competitive, and a
creative society will be more resilient. The work of Susana Cámara Leret contributes to understanding and creating strategic roles for designers in several ways:
Designers have a strategic role to play in solving complex problems

Cámara Leret worked with youth patients and staff at Brijder, a Dutch rehabilitation centre for over a year. In such an environment in the Netherlands, designers
often are restricted to designing the interiors and the communication materials
such as leaflets and posters. But Cámara Leret looked at the treatment i­ tself and at
how patients and staff engaged with each other from the initial c­ ontact onwards.
In addition, she looked at the overall experience of the residents actually living
in the treatment centre. She developed trusted relationships with the people who
matter in that environment. Both analytical and empathetic skills were crucial
to this end. This offered a solid basis for a more fundamental involvement as
a ­designer, in finding solutions to the complexities of rehabilitation for young
­people, along two different lines.
Her first intervention was welcomed as an addition to existing treatment, using
an entirely new medium for staff and patients: smell. This is a material not much
used in design, but very usable when approached with rigorous design skills
related to the exploration of materials, their capabilities and limits. Such deep
explorations by designers typically have concrete results. Cámara Leret created
the ­Smell-Memory Kit: The Molecules that Matter, to be used during intake interviews

69

at the clinic, which centre around memories and storytelling. The smell-based kit
made the memories and stories flow considerably easier at a normally stressful
time for young addicts entering the clinic. We can call this a strategic intervention
because the treatment itself is influenced by it.
Susana Cámara Leret’s second line of investigation is speculative but as explorative as the first. With Kindred Spirits, she aims her design research at speculative
futures rather than material ones. The design fictions that resulted are no less
strategic, because they allow staff and patients to look and talk beyond the everyday.
As Ré Dubhthaigh notes [p. 35] in this publication, being able to address both the
immediate needs of the clinic, staff and patients, and to develop speculative designs for the future in one project presents great advantages because it enlarges
the strategic effects of the separate design efforts. The intervention in the present
is no longer a one-off because it can be seen as a first step towards other possible
futures. And the speculative designs are rooted in the present, instead of disconnected from the ‘now’, which makes them more relevant to discuss.
Organisations must learn about the strategic role design can play

The rehabilitation of young addicts (aged 15 to 25) is a complex problem that is
generally not immediately understood as a design problem. The partners from
the care sector have now seen what role design can play. This role gave them new
­perspectives on their work, as well as new suggestions for how they can do their
work, using smell. The Smell-Memory Kit is designed to such a level that the kit is
ready for immediate use with success. Currently these kits are in use at the clinic,
and they are robust enough to be used again and again, without further ­
support from designers. This sort of outcome is typical for designers:
­understanding gained in design research is immediately turned into action. For
many organisations it is new to engage designers for both gaining the understanding (the research), and creating the intervention (the design). More common
is to investigate what information needs to be conveyed to patients, for instance,
and then to hire a c­ opywriter and designer to create a leaflet brochure or build
a website. With d
­ esigners in a strategic role, all these activities can happen
­simultaneously where all involved collaborate organically, with much more openness as to what form the result eventually will take.
The concrete result of the Smell-Memory Kit kit opened the doors to engaging with
the speculative results, looking much further ahead to futures previously not

70

i­ magined. This started conversations that previously were not considered possible
– about the impact of the physical space on the wellbeing of patients and staff, for
instance. Involving designers to start up such conversations, without a brief that
defines what concrete results they should lead to, is again uncommon. Designers
may be invited to deliver ‘creative ideas’ at times, but without being grounded in
a deep understanding of the place and its people, such creativity is somewhat
­frivolous. Creativity that is firmly rooted in the present – yet dares to look far into
the future, as Cámara Leret’s Kindred Spirits do – is easy to understand as strategically important. Examples like the Kindred Spirits are important because they will
allow designers to justify their presence in strategic conversations – before design
briefs are written.

71

Contributor biographies
Daniëlle Arets

Associate Reader (Associate Lector) in the Readership (Lectoraat) in Strategic
Creativity, Daniëlle Arets also possesses a key role in communicating the
­
­knowledge that results from CRISP to creative industries and education as a
Knowledge Transfer Officer for CRISP. Arets has a strong record in ­organising
debates for a wide array of public, educational and commercial institutes, and
through this e­xperience she has become a strong advocate for interdisciplinary research and design. As Associate Lector and Knowledge ­Transfer O
­ fficer,
Daniëlle aims to bridge academic and design thinking through ­strategic, creative
tools and techniques, and of course, many debates.
Ré Dubhthaigh

Ré Dubhthaigh is a founder and principal of The Civic Works, Ireland, where he
leads on service strategy work with public sector organisations including Dublin
City Council, the Department of Health and the Crafts Council of Ireland. He
has a background in design research and strategy. As director of service design
­agency, Radarstation, he has led projects for clients including BBC, Sony, Lego,
Southern Water, and Hitachi. Dubhthaigh is a Design ­Associate at the UK Design
Council, working with start-ups and industry and public sector organisations in
the UK to innovate their services. Dubhthaigh has an MA in Interaction Design
from the Royal College of Art, London, and has been a researcher at Innovation
RCA and the Interaction Design Institute, Ivrea. He is a regular lecturer and
speaker on design and service strategy internationally, and was an advisory panel
member for Pivot, Dublin’s World Design Capital bid in 2010.
Berend Hofman

Berend Hofman is a GZ-psycholoog (healthcare psychologist) working as chief
clinician at Mistral, a clinic for substance abusing youth. In 2003 he received
his MSc title from Leiden University, specialising in developmental psychology,
after completing his internationally published study on language acquisition.
After a five-year stint working in youth psychiatry at De Jutters he commenced his

72

postdoctoral study in healthcare psychology at Erasmus University in Rotterdam,
­finishing only two years later in 2009. In the same year he started working for
Brijder Jeugd where in 2012 he was awarded a scholarship to start his research
on the usability of two often-used self-report screeners with substance abusing
adolescents.
Susana Cámara Leret

Susana Cámara Leret’s work concerns a transdisciplinary and experimental
practice, creating stories that explore things possible. The descendants of her
narratives oscillate at the intersections between art, design, science, fiction and
reality, confronting scientific truth with the anecdotal or absurd. Her interests lie
in cross-species collaborations in an on-going search for alternate ways of living.
These explorations materialise through multidisciplinary collaborations with
experts from the life sciences to the computer sciences, alongside institutes such
as the Netherland’s Metabolomics Centre or The Waag Society: Institute for Art
­Science and Technology (NL). Susana holds a MA in Conceptual Design in Context
(IM) from Design Academy Eindhoven and a BA in Fine Arts from the University
Complutense of Madrid. Recently having completed her Research ­Associateship
within the Creative Industry Scientific Programme at Design ­
Academy
Eindhoven, she currently lives and works in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Catelijne van Middelkoop

Catelijne van Middelkoop is founder and partner of Strange Attractors Design
(2001), an international studio located in Rotterdam and New York. Strange
­Attractors uses new and traditional media to create design solutions for contemporary problems and desires. In addition to running a design practice, Catelijne
is coordinator and teacher in the Man and Communication department, as well
as tutor in the renewed ‘Lab’ and Propaedeutic (First) Year of Design Academy
Eindhoven. She was involved as a tutor in the Open Design Space A Message for
Oblivion related to Kindred Spirits. Van Middelkoop has an MFA in 2D Design from
­Cranbrook Academy of Art, a Degree in Graphic & Typographic Design from
KABK, studied Art History and Archeology at the University of Amsterdam, is an
external specialist at the Research Department of Art Theory and Artist Practice
at KABK, and was on the national board of directors of the BNO (Association of
Dutch Designers) from 2006 to 2012.
www.strangeattractors.com

73

Bas Raijmakers

Dr. Bas Raijmakers PhD (RCA) is Reader (Lector) in Strategic Creativity at Design
Academy Eindhoven and leads the in-house CRISP research team. Bas Raijmakers
has a background in cultural studies, the internet industry, and ­interaction design.
His main passion is to bring the people for whom we ­design into design and innovation processes, using visual storytelling. He holds a PhD in Design Interactions
from the Royal College of Art, in L
­ ondon. He is also co-founder and Creative
­Director of STBY in London and ­Amsterdam: a design research consultancy
specialised in service innovation. Bas Raijmakers works for clients in the public
sector and industry, around the globe.
Sissel Tolaas

Sissel Tolaas has dedicated herself to Nose / Smell at all levels of life, for more
than twenty years. She has an archive of 6730 smells sourced from reality,
plus a lab archive of 2,500 molecules. Her work has been exhibited at SFMOMA, San ­
Francisco; MOMA, New York; the Guggenheim, Venice and Berlin;
­Museum of Modern Art, Berlin; National Art Museum of China, Beijing; biennales in ­Berlin, Venice, Tirana, Gwangju and Liverpool. Recent awards include
the Rouse ­Foundation Award 2009, Harvard Graduate School of Design and an
­ArsElectronica Award 2010.
Valentijn Visch

Valentijn Visch works as assistant professor at the faculty of Industrial Design
at the Delft University of Technology. He conducts and coordinates persuasive
game design research, and is project leader of the Economic Affairs funded
CRISP G-Motiv project (2011-2015) and the NWO granted NextLevel project
(2013-2017). Both research projects contain research as well as industry- and
userorganizational-­partners. Valentijn has a background in Literature (MA), Art
theory (MA – postgraduate Jan van Eijck Academy), Animation (postgraduate
NIAF ­Tilburg), ­Cultural Sciences and film studies (PhD – VU), and experimental
emotion ­research.

74

Glossary
Creative Industry Scientific Programme

The Readership in Strategic Creativity is embedded in CRISP (Creative ­Industry­
Scientific Programme). CRISP is a Dutch national research programme
­
of more than 60 organisations, in which Design Academy Eindhoven
­collaborates with the Technical Universities of Delft, Eindhoven and Twente,
VU and UvA in Amsterdam and over fifty design companies and service
providers in The Netherlands. CRISP is supported by the Dutch M
­
­ inistry
of Education, Culture and Science. For details about all CRISP projects,
see: www.crispplatform.nl.
G-Motiv

G-Motiv (2011-2015) is a multidisciplinary research project funded by the ministry
of Economic Affairs as part of the CRISP program. The G-Motiv team p
­ erforms
research on persuasive game design, more specifically on the effect and design
of game-elements to achieve physical, social and ­mental behavioural change.
The project results in knowledge of the behavioural effect of game-elements,
­knowledge of the design of game elements and a set of ­validated prototypes.
In order to achieve these results the G-Motiv team comprises research partners (­Industrial Design TU Delft, University of Amsterdam, Vrije Universiteit,
TU/e, Design Academy Eindhoven, Novay), game design agencies (Monobanda,
­IJsfontein, RANJ) and end-user related organisations (Parnassia Bavo / Brijder
mental healthcare, Careyn elderly care, Berenschot consultancy). The project is
led by Valentijn Visch at Technicial University Delft.
Open Design Spaces

Open Design Spaces are an initiative of the Readership in Strategic ­Creativity
at ­
Design Academy Eindhoven. The team of Research Associates of the
Readership works on collaborative projects within CRISP. The Open Design
­
Spaces ­
extend this collaboration to students and tutors at the academy to
­introduce what a­ cademic design research entails. These series of workshops are
a way for ­students to participate in this research programme. They are a bridge
­between the ­Readership in Strategic Creativity and the educational programme
of Design Academy Eindhoven.

75

The Readership in Strategic Creativity at Design Academy Eindhoven

The Readership explores how design and creativity can play a strategic role in
society and the economy in general, and in service innovation in particular.
Academic knowledge is created through designing, within the strong design
­
culture of Design Academy Eindhoven. The results of the programme are used
within the educational programme of Design Academy Eindhoven by way of Open
Design Spaces: a four-week design research module for s­ tudents around a topic
related to the research of a Research Associate. Further ­results are ­disseminated
through public debates, conferences, workshops and ­publications. You can follow
the work via several digital channels.
See more details at www.designacademy.nl/strategiccreativity.

All the patients and staff from Mistral Rehabilitation Clinic who collaborated on this
project. Berend Hofman and Renske Spijkerman from Brijder. The Olfactive­Design Studio
from International Flavours & Fragrances: special thanks to B
­ ernardo Fleming,
Ricardo Moya, Gregoire Hausson and Stephanie Anderson.

Designing with young addicts and healthcare professionals in a
rehabilitation clinic requires a deep understanding of the everyday
situations they face, especially when the anticipated designs aim
beyond the mundane at more speculative and uncharted territories.
This publication brings together a wide range of perspectives of
that journey, with stories about how the design of a set of smells
influenced the youths’ treatment and how the design of fictional
‘companion species’ allow people at the clinic to see and
discuss their daily environment in new ways.
The Kindred Spirits is a project by Susana Cámara Leret, Research
Associate at Design Academy Eindhoven, and part of the G-motiv
project within CRISP (Creative Industry Scientific Programme).
CRISP focusses on exploring strategic roles for designers in society
and the economy, because creative societies are more resilient
and creative economies more competitive. A strategic intervention
anchored in the ‘now’, strategic design is rooted in a deep
understanding of the situations it discusses; its aim is to open the
door – for all of us – to future uncertainties.
This book is part of a series of publications of the Readership in
Strategic Creativity at Design Academy Eindhoven. The Readership
explores how designers trained at Design Academy Eindhoven can
create academic knowledge through design.